British banks expect to further tighten up on lending to consumers amid worries about the boom in unsecured credit.

According the the Bank of England's quarterly credit conditions survey, lenders anticipate a "significant decrease" in the level of money available via loans and credit cards in the first quarter of this year. This follows tighter lending conditions in the final three months of 2017, the fourth consecutive quarter in which lending was pared back.

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The Bank of England has previously warned of "complacency" among lenders as the growth of consumer credit outpaced that of household income growth.

However, its latest survey shows that the availability of unsecured credit fell during the whole of 2017, with the proportion of banks reporting declining availability outweighing those with greater availability by 12 percentage points.

A balance of 24.3 per cent of banks said they expect unsecured lending to fall in the current quarter. Credit scoring criteria have also tightened up, with a balance of 21.7 per cent of banks reporting a falling level of loan application approvals in the final three months of last year.

At the same time, demand among consumers for unsecured loans fell at the sharpest pace since 2011.

Howard Archer, chief economic advisor to the EY ITEM Club, said the survey results should "go down well" at the Bank of England.

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"It may be that heightened uncertainties over the outlook and increased concerns over personal finances are encouraging some consumers to be more cautious in their borrowing,"Archer said. "However, the persistent squeeze on consumer purchasing power is likely to continue to fuel the need for some consumers to borrow."

He added: "It remains to be seen just how much effect the Bank of England's interest rate hike has had on dampening consumers' willingness to borrow.

"While the increase was just 25 basis points and interest rates are still at historically low levels, there culd well have been a significant psychological impact on potential borrowers given that it was the first interest rate hike since 2007."